Hey everybody, did you know that today is the birthday of writer and editor extraordinaire, and all 'round nice guy, NewClassic [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/NewClassic]? Well it is! And what better way to celebrate our favourite monitorhead's special day than with a cake dedicated to the man himself? Process pics abound!
The basic idea was to recreate NewClassic's avatar in edible form, with a cake for the body, and cookies boxed together for the head. I found out that his favourite variety of cookie was chocolate chip, his favourite colour was "a finite shade of grey" and a got a bigger version of his avvie [http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a395/NewClassic/Forum%20Stuff/Robot14.jpg] to work off of, using the covert tactic of going straight up and asking him, and then made a terrible great sketch at 1am in bed. At first I called it "Project New-Cake-Sic" but later decided that was a rubbish name, and got on with the task at hand.
Things got off to a flying start with all the ingredients laid out logically on the kitchen bench, a bowl ready to mix them all into and some rocking beats (by which I mean Coldplay) playing on the computer. However as soon as I got to work I once again proved my inability to read and discovered that all the measurements for the recipe were in grams. Quite the stumbling point when you don't have a set of scales. However, with a lot of careful guesswork I soon had cookie dough of an eerily sticky nature, which I began to shape on a baking tray. Then I realised I'd forgotten to but down any baking paper.
"Shit!" I proclaimed loudly, echoing through my empty house. The dough made an unsatisfying squelch as it peeled away, and then I tried again, with baking paper this time.
It was at this point I realised I'd forgotten to put the chocolate chips into the dough.
"Arse!" I proclaimed, even louder this time, peeling back the dough once more and mixing in the chocolate chips like I should have done in the first place. Coldplay's "The Hardest Part" began to play on the computer, coming across as incredibly condescending.
"Are you sure this isn't too hard for you? Maybe you should give up, and do something a little easier, like send the guy a nice private message. Do you think you could handle that?"
Casting aside the band's pessimism I finally got the dough into the shapes I wanted.
After about 20 minutes in the oven, they looked like this.
It was evident that my ignorance to bakery physics had hindered me once more as a looked upon the dough, spread across the trays and sticking together in one solid mass of cookie. The second I found this out, Coldplay piped up again with "Talk." The lyrics "Are you lost or incomplete?" only cemented my theory that Chris Martin was against me. I changed the music to something a little more upbeat.
With the help of George Clinton I put my worries (and the cookies) to one side and got on with the next component, the body. This was probably the easiest part of them all, because a) I've probably made about a hundred of these before and b) It's butter cake, it's pretty hard to mess up. To spice it up a little I added in the remaining chocolate chips, and also some Lindt Drinking Chocolate, because it was the only other chocolaty thing I could find.
Three quarters of an hour later, this was the surprisingly good result.
With everything cooked it was time to think about putting it together. The cookies ending up bigger than I'd intended actually turned out to be a good thing, as I could now cut them down into smaller, better fitting pieces. However, this is not to say that I didn't get it right a few times.
Once it was finally in a shape that could just barely hold itself, I came back arcoss the problem of how to get it to hold together. Here I had many ideas, some not as good others. Initially I was thinking glue (yes, really) but decided against that as it's kind of, well, toxic. Then I tried toothpicks, which didn't work to well, and eventually settled on using icing like cement (much like you would with gingerbread house) and then proceeded to coat the whole dang thing in the stuff.
Then to finish, the body, and the part I was most hesitant about. I mean, "a finite shade of grey" is pretty damn hard to make with blue and red food dye, and how would that really look at the end, having a grey cake and all? But it's what the man wanted, and as The O'Jays sung in 1975, You've got give the people, give the people what they want, and thus it was done to the best of my ability, along with a white shirt and a little red tie.
Now we just add the head, aaaaand...
Da-daa! Happy Birthday Nuke! My only regret is that I could never possibly send this to you in the post
The basic idea was to recreate NewClassic's avatar in edible form, with a cake for the body, and cookies boxed together for the head. I found out that his favourite variety of cookie was chocolate chip, his favourite colour was "a finite shade of grey" and a got a bigger version of his avvie [http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a395/NewClassic/Forum%20Stuff/Robot14.jpg] to work off of, using the covert tactic of going straight up and asking him, and then made a terrible great sketch at 1am in bed. At first I called it "Project New-Cake-Sic" but later decided that was a rubbish name, and got on with the task at hand.
Things got off to a flying start with all the ingredients laid out logically on the kitchen bench, a bowl ready to mix them all into and some rocking beats (by which I mean Coldplay) playing on the computer. However as soon as I got to work I once again proved my inability to read and discovered that all the measurements for the recipe were in grams. Quite the stumbling point when you don't have a set of scales. However, with a lot of careful guesswork I soon had cookie dough of an eerily sticky nature, which I began to shape on a baking tray. Then I realised I'd forgotten to but down any baking paper.
"Shit!" I proclaimed loudly, echoing through my empty house. The dough made an unsatisfying squelch as it peeled away, and then I tried again, with baking paper this time.
It was at this point I realised I'd forgotten to put the chocolate chips into the dough.
"Arse!" I proclaimed, even louder this time, peeling back the dough once more and mixing in the chocolate chips like I should have done in the first place. Coldplay's "The Hardest Part" began to play on the computer, coming across as incredibly condescending.
"Are you sure this isn't too hard for you? Maybe you should give up, and do something a little easier, like send the guy a nice private message. Do you think you could handle that?"
Casting aside the band's pessimism I finally got the dough into the shapes I wanted.
After about 20 minutes in the oven, they looked like this.
It was evident that my ignorance to bakery physics had hindered me once more as a looked upon the dough, spread across the trays and sticking together in one solid mass of cookie. The second I found this out, Coldplay piped up again with "Talk." The lyrics "Are you lost or incomplete?" only cemented my theory that Chris Martin was against me. I changed the music to something a little more upbeat.
With the help of George Clinton I put my worries (and the cookies) to one side and got on with the next component, the body. This was probably the easiest part of them all, because a) I've probably made about a hundred of these before and b) It's butter cake, it's pretty hard to mess up. To spice it up a little I added in the remaining chocolate chips, and also some Lindt Drinking Chocolate, because it was the only other chocolaty thing I could find.
Three quarters of an hour later, this was the surprisingly good result.
With everything cooked it was time to think about putting it together. The cookies ending up bigger than I'd intended actually turned out to be a good thing, as I could now cut them down into smaller, better fitting pieces. However, this is not to say that I didn't get it right a few times.
Once it was finally in a shape that could just barely hold itself, I came back arcoss the problem of how to get it to hold together. Here I had many ideas, some not as good others. Initially I was thinking glue (yes, really) but decided against that as it's kind of, well, toxic. Then I tried toothpicks, which didn't work to well, and eventually settled on using icing like cement (much like you would with gingerbread house) and then proceeded to coat the whole dang thing in the stuff.
Then to finish, the body, and the part I was most hesitant about. I mean, "a finite shade of grey" is pretty damn hard to make with blue and red food dye, and how would that really look at the end, having a grey cake and all? But it's what the man wanted, and as The O'Jays sung in 1975, You've got give the people, give the people what they want, and thus it was done to the best of my ability, along with a white shirt and a little red tie.
Now we just add the head, aaaaand...
Da-daa! Happy Birthday Nuke! My only regret is that I could never possibly send this to you in the post
